First Corinthians 1. First Corinthians
1. Always, always delightful to
be here, be with the Lord's people wherever they are. That's why, you know, the Lord's
people are so united that you can worship anywhere and feel
at home. You really can. Last time we were here, I got
sick, got the COVID. Didn't even know that, you know,
I thought I'm immune to that, but about that time I got it.
But, uh, got over it. I'm sure you did too. But I want
to bring a message today on five reasons we preach the gospel. Five reasons why we preach the
gospel. But look here in verse 17 of
1 Corinthians chapter 1. We read two verses here. For Christ sent me, not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the
cross of Christ should be made of none effect. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it
is the power of God." There's such a great difference
in a preacher that God calls, God anoints, and God teaches
than other preachers. And you know that by the message
that they preach. What's being preached in today's
religious circles is not God-honored at all, does not honor Christ,
does not edify, does not help, does not establish anything or
anybody. You know, when Paul preached
on Marth Hills, they said there, said, this man seems to be a
stranger, sent forth of strange gods. What is he talking about? He said, well, he's preaching
because he preached unto them Jesus Christ and the resurrection. They said, that's strange. That's
really strange. And we've come to the place,
and it's so sad, that the truth is what's evil spoken of today.
You know, and you know that from experience. As an old saying
says, if it's true, it's not new. And if it's new, it's not
true. And you know, and one of the
things that blessed me so much when I first came around, when
God saved me and brought me around the grace believers and brought
me around grace preachers, And that's what we call them, free
grace preachers, sovereign grace preachers, grace preachers. We
use language that other people don't use. But what was such
a blessing to me was that they would have you to open their
Bibles. And you follow along. You see whether what I'm saying
is true or not. You follow me and find out if
this is right. And I really thought that was
a great, wonderful thing. Because, you know, most preachers
get up, and the last thing they want you to do is to look in
the Bible, because, you know, they're not preaching from it
most of the time. But Paul said about Timothy, he said, You from
a child has known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make thee wise
unto salvation through faith which is in Christ. And you know
the preacher, all the people in the Bible, prophets called
preachers, God blessed them. And you all, all of us can attest
to the fact that there's been a steady, steady, steady decline
from truth. An awful decay in religion. It's
become so rotten that it stinks. It's a horrible, horrible thing
what religion is today. You can't turn it on, you can't
listen to it. And down home, I don't know if
they do it around here or not, they have two services. Almost
every congregation, they have the traditional service. That's
for the old folks that come early in the morning. And then a couple
hours later, they have what they call a contemporary service,
which I don't know what in the world that means. But they have
two different services to make do with two different classes
of people. So they have a message for the
traditional folks, the music for traditional folks, the gospel
for traditional folks, and then when the contemporary comes in,
the music changes, the message changes, the method changes,
and the people change. And you all know that's so. And
you know, but God's truth is constant. God's truth is constant.
The gospel is constant. And you know, people with it,
we get told all the time, and I get told this, and I'm sure
maybe some of y'all do. Y'all need to get a message that's
relevant. You gotta get relevant to the times. You gotta get relevant
to the people. You gotta get relevant to what's
going on in this world today. You gotta get relevant, gotta
get with the modern man. Well, let me give you some constants
from God's word. Things that's always constant.
Here's a Constance, man is still a sinner before God Almighty.
He ain't changed. God hasn't changed and man's
nature hasn't changed. He was born a sinner, he'll live
a sinner, he'll die a sinner if Christ don't do something
for him. And here's the second constant. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the only Savior of sinners. There's not another Savior under
heaven. There's not another name under
heaven. There's not another blood. There's
not another righteousness. There's not another power. There's
not another person other than Jesus Christ that God will bless
and save a sinner because of Christ. And when I hear and read
that myself, you know that this is a faithful saying and worthy
of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners of whom I am chief. That just blesses my heart so
much because the older I get, The older I get, the more I feel
my need of Christ, the more I understand about how weak and how frail
and how unable I am to do anything in and of myself. So I need a
Savior, and God bless His holy name. Our Lord Jesus is that
Savior. That's constant. I don't care
what anybody else says. There's only one Savior in this
world, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you something
else that's not changed. God's Word has not changed. They
can modernize it. They can neutralize it. They
can de-gender it. De-gender it. All they want to. But here's the truth. God says,
My Word is forever settled in Heaven. Heaven and Earth will
pass away, but My Word won't. And you know what God said? He
said that He esteemed His Word above His name. What does that
mean? That God can create a thousand worlds like this if He wills
to do it. But one thing He cannot change, He cannot change His
Word. And I tell you what, God can do anything that He wills
to do. But He will never change His
Word. Never. That's why it's so precious. That's why it's so blessed to
us. That's why it's so encouraging to us. And I tell you that the
fourth thing is constant. God's way of saving a sinner
has never changed. It's never changed. Never changed. The way that God saves a sinner.
And what did I mean by that? That God does it all. Jesus paid
it all, all to him we owe. Sin left a crimson stain. He
is the one that washed it white as snow. We never contribute
anything to our salvation but sin. And Christ has to do it
all. God has to do it all. He's got
to come to where we are. He's got to come and do for us.
We never have done anything for God that God can bless us for.
So this is constant that God's way of saving men has not changed.
He's got to do it all. From the day He saves you to
the day He takes you to glory, He does it all. And then I tell
you, here's the fifth thing, that the gospel, the gospel is
still the power of God. And it's the power that God uses.
And I tell you, it's the power that God uses to break down wheels,
to break down minds, to break down natures, to break down tradition,
to turn the darkness into light. The gospel is still the power
of God. Well, let me give you five reasons. I hope I don't take too long.
Here's the first reason why we're called to preach the gospel.
For the glory of God. What God is most interested in,
that's what we are best interested in. And God said, I will not
give my glory to another. I will not do it. You know, all
the theologian books, and catechisms and all the creeds, the first
thing they say that I've ever read is the first thing they
deal with is man's chief end is to glorify God, and I love
this, enjoy Him forever. Man's chief end is to glorify
God and enjoy Him forever. And the scripture says whatsoever
you eat, whatsoever you drink, whatsoever you do, do all to
the glory of God. And I tell you, beloved, and
look what he said here in verse 26 here of 1 Corinthians. Look what it says here. Paul
looks at these fellows and talks, talking to them, and he says,
and they're just like somebody talking to you. This is the way
the scriptures are. For you see your calling, brethren.
You're all our brethren. You see your calling? God didn't
choose many wise men after the flesh. Not many mighty people
as powerful and got a lot of influence, not many noble, but
God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the
wise. He had chosen the weak things,
people like us, to confound the things which are mighty. And
the things, the lowest things in the world, and things which
are despised, God hath chosen, yea, and things which are not,
that don't even exist, to bring to naught the things that are.
Here's the reason why, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him, God done this for
us now, put us in Christ Jesus, and God made Christ us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, redemption. And listen again,
that according as it is written, he that glorieth, there's only
one place he can glory, that's in the Lord. Ah, only placing
glories in the Lord. Whether we're singing, whether
we're praying, whether we're preaching, whatever it is, by
God's grace, it must be motivated by a desire to glorify God Almighty. They come to John the Baptist,
and they said, John, who are you? He said, I'm just a voice. That's all I am, a voice. What
do you got to say? There's one coming after me.
Mightier than I am. I'm not fit to get down and loosen
a latchet on his shoe. He has to increase. He got to
go up, I got to go down. That's the way it is. And I tell
you, when Isaiah saw the Lord, you know what he saw? He said,
His glory filled the whole earth. Moses, you know after Moses seen
all those miracles and all those wonders in Egypt, after they
come through the Red Sea, after that, you know what Moses said
to God? What he asked of God after he'd
seen all the things that happened? He said, Lord, I want to see
your glory. But he had already seen the Red
Sea and walked on, Gregory. He had already seen all those
wonders down in Egypt. And then he said, but Lord, I
won't see you glory. He had met God in a burning bush.
But God, I won't see you glory. I won't see you glory. Oh, my. And I tell you, Daniel, when
he saw the Lord, you know what happened? He is a beautiful man.
But he said, after he saw the Lord, his beauty turned into
corruption. And that's what, here's the thing. People think
that they see their sin, and then they go to Christ. You can't
see what you are until you see Christ. And so it's just to glorify
Him, and all of God's glorious attributes are revealed in the
gospel. In the gospel, His love is glorified. Oh, how glorified it is. You
know, people get so hung up on John 3.16, and I love that, I
love that verse. But if the gospel starts in John
3.14, He said, as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. That whosoever believeth
on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. And here's
the motive why God lifted up that serpent and why God lifts
up Christ. For God so loved the world that
He gave, His only begotten Son set Him up, lifted Him up. And
I tell you what, and I tell you, Romans 5a says this, God, you
wanna know how much, you wanna know how God commended his love
to us? You know how he did it? God commendeth his love toward
us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were yet sinners. That's
how God commended his love to us. I want you to know how much
I love you. I want you to understand how
much I love you. See my beloved blessed son, I'm
gonna take him and I'm gonna slay him, I'm gonna kill him,
I'm gonna crucify him, I'm gonna forsake him because I love you. And because I do love you, said
I'm gonna commend it and show you that I'm gonna give you my
son. And I tell you his mercy, his mercy is glorified in the
gospel. Oh, the gospel tells us. Oh,
listen. God said, I will, I will have
mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I will have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. And he said, and I will show
my mercy unto thousands of generations. And I'll tell you what, he said
that back to Moses. Here I am today. I don't know
how many thousands of years that was ago. You know, I can't go
back that far. But I do know this, that I'm
standing here because God willed to show mercy to me. He willed
to have compassion on me. God who commended the light to
shine out of darkness, shined in our hearts. to give the light,
the understanding of His glory. We're at in the face, in the
blessed person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll tell
you, here's another thing. His righteousness is glorified.
His righteousness is glorified. You know, God is a righteous
God. And where in the world do you
see righteousness more glorified, more honored, more upheld than
in the death of his blessed son? In the gospel. is the righteousness
of God revealed. How righteous He is! How righteous
He is! How righteous is He that He cannot
let sin go by? How righteous is He that He must
punish sin? How righteous is He that He won't
lower His standards? How righteous is He? He is righteous
and beloved. How in the world are we going
to get this righteousness? That's the next thing. His justice
is glorified. You know, God took the blessed
son of God, and he took him and made him to be what we are. Sin, shame, guilt, darkness,
death, corruption. Helpless, hopeless, without God,
without Christ in this world. And God took his son because
he's so righteous and so just. He took his blessed son and he
made him to be sin. And I don't know what all that
means. I really don't. If we could ever understand how
deep, how dark, how the depth and how depraved we are, then
we'd know something about sin. When Paul used the word, he said,
all I know about sin is it's exceeding sinful. But God took
him because of his righteousness. He took his blessed son and he
charged all of our sin to his account from Abel to the last
sheep on this earth. The past sins and all the future
sins that anybody would ever commit for whom Christ died,
they all come marching, and they all fell on the head of the blessed
Son of God. Why? Because God's righteous,
and He must punish sin. Why? Because God's just, and
He got to not let a man live. I mean, He will not in no means
clear the guilty, and He don't clear the guilty. You know what
He does for them? He puts the guilt away. Where's
he put away? In his blessed son, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's where the guilt's gone.
That's why he said as he prayed, there's no condemnation now.
And oh my, God must be just. He may show mercy. And you know,
people say, God is love. Yes, He is. God is love. And wherever there's love, it
must be expressed. If you've got love for somebody,
you'll express that love to that person. And God's love was expressed. Words expressed that in His Son. He loved us in Christ. God in
Christ loved us. Who's gonna be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ? Huh? And he is
righteous, he must punish sin. And God, the gospel reveals how
all these attributes can be brought together. Christ being God and
sinless man can reach up to God Almighty. And Christ be the man,
the perfect man, the sinless man, and as God can reach up
there, get a hold of God and get a hold of us, and bring us
together, and reconcile us and make us one. Yeah. Oh my. Ah, Christ, it's no wonder
he says Christ is the power of God. God don't do anything but
by him. And he's the wisdom of God, how
God can be just and justify. Well, here's the second reason
why we preach gospel. Not only to glorify God. I've
never done anything for the glory of God. I don't know it. I really
don't. There's always something. You always feel good about what
you've done, or you always feel bad about what you've done. You
wait for somebody to say something nice to you, or good to you,
or tell you how much they appreciate you, something like that, if
you don't get it. So you know what I'm saying is, we're aiming
at that. That's what I'm aiming at. I'm
aiming at God's glory. You know when I'll have it? When
I see Him face to face. And here's the thing. We're commanded. We're commanded to preach the
gospel. You know, I, that was a fellow years, I don't know
how many people I've run across like this over the years. I remember
a fellow one time and he, he said God called him to preach
and he didn't want to do it. So he started drinking to get
away from it, to get away from his calling. He died of cirrhosis
of the liver when he was 34 years old. You reckon God called him? One guy, one time preacher, they
said, so and so, they found him out. You wouldn't believe what
he was doing. I said, oh yeah, I would. Said,
you know, anybody that's not called to God, they'll do anything.
But when God commands a man to preach the gospel, He's gonna
do it. Sink or swim, hell or high water,
He's gonna do it. That's just the way it is. Christ
sent me to preach the gospel. Ain't that what He said? Look
what He said back there in verse 17. Back up there in 1 Corinthians
17, 1-17. Christ sent me not to baptize,
but to preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. If souls are
saved, that's wonderful. If they're not saved, we're still
gonna preach the gospel. If anybody makes a confession,
that's wonderful. But if they don't, we're still
gonna preach the gospel. And the results has absolutely
nothing to do with it. I like results. I'd love to see
people make a confession of faith in Christ. The results, but they
have nothing to do with it. God sent Ezekiel down. He said,
Ezekiel, You see this in Ezekiel three and chapter two and verse
three both, where he said, son, I'm gonna send you down to preach
to a people that they understand everything you say. You all don't,
you all speak the same language. You speak the same, you know,
they're not strange people. But he said, I'm gonna tell you
what, when I send them, send you down there, they're not gonna
listen to a word you got to say. He told them one time, he said,
you're going to be like a fella that's making good music, and
they love the music, but they don't like what you've got to
say. They don't like it. And I tell
you, the ability, the inability of the sinner does not stop the
preacher. Doesn't do it. He's commanded
to preach. I know you all have heard about
the valley of dry bones. I bet you've heard it in here
plenty of times. But God says, some man, He took him by the
spirit and set him down in the middle of a valley. And when
he got down there, that valley was full, just full, piled on
top and piled on top of dead, dry bones. And God asked him
a question. Can these bones live? You're
the only one that knows that one.
I don't know. You know. He said, I want you
to preach to them. What do you want to say? Hear
the word of the Lord. That's the first thing he said,
hear the word of the Lord. And he said, I'm going to cause
you to come together, and I'm going to make you stand up on
your feet. And sure enough, there's a rattling of the bones, and
they all come up, and there's just a bunch of skeletons standing
there. Then a little while, a bunch of flesh come up on them as he
preached some more. And after that, there's all standing
there, and every one of them, like Adam, was an inanimate object. But you know what made the difference?
God said, send the wind, send the spirit. And the gospel calls
and says, the wind bloweth where it listeth. You hear the sound
thereof, and you can't tell where it come from or where it's going.
But oh, I'll tell you the gospel. And that's what happened. Them
bones, just like us, God's got to breathe the gospel, the life
of God into us himself. And all men, all men, all men,
are commanded to praise Him. Let everything that hath breath
praise Him. And they're all commanded to
repent. Our Lord said all men, everywhere, is commanded to repent.
And you know this over in 1 John 3.23 over there, it says this. You're commanded. God said He
commands you to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, His Son, and
to love one another. That's two commandments. What's
the law? Well, there's two commandments
Christ gave us. Believe on his son and love one another. And
if you believe on his son, you will. You'll do the second. And
then they're told to obey the gospel. And we're all going to
stand before the judgment seat of Christ. And that's an encouragement
to me. You know why I say why it's an
encouragement to me? We're going to stand before the
one who died for us. The one who shed his blood for
us. the one who gave us grace, the one who saved us. We're not
going to stand before some high school judges. He's already judged
us. I'm not going to stand there to give account of everything
I've ever done. He done took care of everything I ever done.
So when we face Christ into judgment, it's going to be wonderful, absolutely
wonderful. Give you the third reason why
we preach the gospel. We preach the gospel because
it alone, it alone is the power of God unto salvation. You know,
it says there in verse 22 and 23, 22 and verse 23 here, chapter
one, for the Jews require a sign. Oh Lord, give us a sign, show
us a sign. And the Greeks, they want some
wisdom. They want to understand everything
that's going on in the world. But you know what we do? We preach
Christ. Crucified. The Jews stumble over
that. There's no sign in that. And
the Greeks call it foolishness. But unto them which are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power and wisdom of God.
You know, I want you to turn to Romans 10 with me. Romans
10. Look at this. You know, we preach
the gospel because it's along the power of God unto salvation. Man cannot call or trust a Savior
they don't know nothing about. They can't trust a Savior that
they don't know anything about. And I'm going to reveal Christ.
And people do that. And you know how many services
there are in Americans going on right this morning? That people
are going to be called to the front, and they're going to make
a profession. They're going to sign a card.
They're going to join a church. Are they gonna get baptized?
And you ask them, what do you know about Jesus Christ? Well,
I just know he loves me and I know he died for me. But what else
do you know about him? That's all. Because they don't
know anything about him. And so how can you trust somebody
you don't know anything about? Would you trust a stranger who
walked up to you and said, listen, if you give me $10,000, I'll
get you 20 back? Would you give $10,000 to a stranger?
No, you wouldn't do that. And that's the way people are with
Christ. They're taught to come to somebody they don't know nothing
about. But look what it said here in Romans 10, 13. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's true, that's absolutely
true. Well, how then shall they call
on him in whom they have not believed? How you gonna call
on somebody you don't believe in, that you don't believe at
all? And how shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard?
How you gonna believe in somebody you don't know anything about?
And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they
preach except they be sent? But look what he said down in
verse 16, but they not all obeyed the gospel. Isaiah said, who
hath believed our report? Who's believed our preaching?
Who's listened to it? He said, this is how the gospel
does. It brings faith with it. It brings faith by hearing, and
hearing by the word of God. And you know, I think that Christ absolutely
needs to be identified. I think he needs to be preached
in such a way that you cannot misunderstand who he is. Who
is he? He's the image of the invisible
God. He is the fullness of the God
that dwelt in Him. When you saw the Word of Jesus
Christ, you was looking at God the Father, God Almighty. You was looking at God who made
the world and everything in it and opposed it by the Word of
His power. God is invisible. No man has ever seen Him. But
God came down in Christ and Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was the
express image and brightness of God's glory. Well, what did
He do? What did he do? Well, when he
come into this world, he come into this world to be a representative,
to be a substitute, to stand in somebody else's place, to
do for something for people that they could not do for themselves.
Well, I tell you, he put away sin. That's the first thing.
He put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And I tell you, God
himself said this. He said, there are sins and iniquities.
Will I not remember against them no more? And I tell you, our
Lord Jesus Christ, He told His disciples, I must suffer, I must
die. I've got to go and be delivered
into the hands of sinful men and die and be raised again the
third day. I must suffer, I must die. And I tell you what, bless His
holy name. Not only did He put away all our sin, but He has
perfected us forever. He has sanctified us forever. That's what He did by His blessed
death. And why did He do it? That God could be just. God's
so just. So He put His Son on a cross.
And the Lord Jesus Himself said this, He said this back centuries
before Christ went to the cross. My God, my God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me? You know what the answer comes
back? Because thou art holy. Because thou art holy. You know, He loved righteousness. He loved
His Father. He loved His people. And because He laid down His
life, He was the just for the unjust that He might bring us
to God. Well, who in the world did He die for? Who did He do
it for? Every man on earth? Well, he said, I'm the good shepherd. I lay down my life for the sheep.
He said, no man takes my life from me. I've got the power to
lay it down. I've got the power to take up
again. This commandment have I received of my father. He said,
my sheep, my sheep, hear my voice. And I know them, and they follow
me. And you know, he'd done it for
God's elect. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's Christ that died. Who is
He they condemn? It's God that justified. And
as many as were ordained to eternal life. You know what they did?
They believed. As a remnant according to the
election of grace. And where is the Lord Jesus Christ
right now? Well, I know one thing. He's
not down here. I do know that. People say, come up here and
accept Jesus. Well, he's not there. Scott Richardson used to say
all the time, he said, you know, you can go to Jesus Christ and
you get there without saying a word, without moving a muscle.
Christ sitting at the right hand of God. And the only way you
can get there is by faith. You can't get there any other
way. And I tell you what, He's sitting
at the right hand of God making intercession for us. And the
Gospel reveals the person, God and man in one undivided person
in the Lord Jesus Christ. It reveals His work, who He is,
what He did, who He did it for, and where He is right now sitting
at God's right hand. Here's the fourth reason why
we preach the gospel. We preach the gospel because
men are going about to establish their own righteousness. Are
you still in Romans 10? Are you? Well, look at that again. You know, we preach the gospel
because men are going about to establish their own righteousness.
You know, they were born with their own righteousness. Everybody has their own righteousness
until God saves them from it, destroys it. How does somebody
go about to establish their own righteousness? Well, you don't
have to get them to do anything. They're born with it, and they'll
live with it. They'll tell you how good they
are if you ask them. And I'll take it. They have a
zeal. Oh, they won't tell you about
their devotions. They won't tell you about their Bible reading.
They won't tell you about their works. They won't tell you about
their church attendance. They won't tell you about all
the things they've done for the Lord. All the things they've
done for God. But they never say what God's
done for them. They have a zeal, but it's not
according to what God is and how God is. When they go about
to establish, It don't take you long. I'll just give you an illustration. There's a fella, I've known him
since he was just a real, real young fella. And I knew his mother,
she was a rank, rank Armenian, and he joined the Chainsane Church,
and he got real, real sick. Real sick. And he was getting
over it, and he said, you know, I sat with him, talking to him
and his wife, I said, boy, God sure was merciful to you, wasn't
he? To let you get over that. You know what he said? He said,
no, mercy didn't have nothing to do with it. He said, I was
just determined to get better. He said, I was just determined
to get better. He said, mercy didn't have nothing
to do with it. You know what a fellow told me
one time? When you talk to a guy like that, save your breath to
cool your coffee. Don't talk to him no more. And I tell you,
there's people like that all over the world. You know, I had
a righteousness like that, wouldn't I? I had a righteousness like
the Apostle Paul. When you looked at me, you said,
boy, that old boy's got a righteousness. He lives right. He really lives
right. Oh my, he's so dedicated, he's
so committed. They called me that little wholeness
preacher. They said, he's a wholeness preacher. I didn't have any wholeness about
me, no worse shape, form, or fashion. Lost as a white goose
in a snowstorm. But here God had mercy on me.
And He comes. And here's what He does. We have
our righteousness, you know. We have our goodness. We have
our morality. We have our dedication. We have our commitment. We have
our sincerity. We have our honesty. And we have
all these things that we hide behind. Well, then God, with
His sovereign mercy, when He goes after you, He starts taking
them away one at a time. He'll take away everything that
you ever trusted in. He'll come on and He'll get it
and He'll get it and He'll get it until you ain't got nothing
left. Then when He breaks you and you
ain't got nothing left, you know what you'll do? You'll throw
yourself on Christ. And He will not let you, not
let you ever ever go back to it. Paul said, I count my everything
that I ever believed, every work I ever done, every prayer I ever
prayed, every fasting I ever did. And I mean him and the high priest
was big buddies. And here he said, everything
that I ever thought, everything. He said, you know what I do?
I count it with a tongue. I count it with a tongue. Huh? He said, I count my righteousness
and everything I ever thought or believed or done or ever prayed,
nothing, nothing in all my life. And people are like that because
they're ignorant of God's righteousness. In Christ's righteousness, look
what it says down in verse 4 now, Romans 10. Christ is the end
of the law, the goal of the law, the finishing of the law. They
go about by the law and by their works to establish their own
righteousness, and they've not submitted themselves to Christ.
He's the end, the goal of the law for righteousness, not to
somebody that does, but to them that believe. them that believe. Can you find, let me ask you
this, can you find one person in the whole Bible, in the whole
Bible who is saved by their goodness, saved by their morality, saved
by their law keeping, saved by their prayers, saved by their
long robes and their phylacteries, by their baptism, by their giving,
by their tithe paying, Some have tried, Ananas and Sapphira tried. Some of the sorcerer tried. But
there is one man, one man, in all of history, between the eternities,
who went to glory and was accepted of God by his own works, by his
own merit, by his own worth, by his obedience. And that was
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he had enough worth and merit
in himself to give us all his righteousness and merit. You
know, let me tell you a little history story here. Just a little
history. I don't know how many of y'all
ever heard of Thomas Aquinas. He was a Catholic priest. And
he was the first one who ever started teaching that some saints
like himself and some of the saints in the Catholic Church,
they had enough grace, more grace than they needed, so if you'd
pray to them, they'd give you some of their grace. And if you
didn't have enough merit, you could pray to them, and they'd
give you some of their merit. Now that's where that praying
to saints and angels and all that started. That's why Paul
said, that's will worship. That's will worship. You're tuned
into things you don't know nothing about. But now I tell you there
is one man who had enough merit to give all for whom he died
his merit. The Lord Jesus Christ. There's
one man who had enough goodness that He'd give all of us His
goodness. There's one man who had so much righteousness, He'd
give all of us righteousness, and He stayed exactly like He
was, and had as much as He did when He gave us all of His, He
had as much as He did to start with. He ain't... He... He ain't
got... Oh... Oh... Thank God for the
Lord Jesus Christ. Bless His holy name. I'm so thankful
for Him. I'm so thankful, bless His name,
that He, He would do that for me. Huh? That I stand right here,
right now, as righteous as I'm ever gonna be, as holy as I'm
ever gonna be, as accepted of God as I'm ever gonna be, as
sinless as I'm ever gonna be, I'm going to change geographical
locations one of these days, but I'll be no more righteous
when I get to glory than I am right now. I'll be no more accepted
of God than I am right now when I get there. You know why? Because
He did it all. Listen, I'm going to go from
here to there, but my standing with God won't change one iota,
not one iota. All right, let me wind this up.
We preach the Gospel. The fifth reason we preach the
Gospel. First, for the glory of God. Secondly, to men who
want to establish their own righteousness. But here we preach the Gospel.
That believers may grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, Paul told the The people he wrote to, and the
strangers, and those scattered abroad, he said, you know, he
said, desire the sincere miracle of the Word that you may grow
that life. And you know, it's a growing
grace and growing knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. I've been
reading the scriptures. I've been pastoring the church
down there 44 years, last March. I started reading the scriptures
when I was 23. And I lived with nothing but
a Bible for four years, never bought another book, never read
another book but the Bible. And I love God's Word. But I
tell you, after all these years, that book is deeper and wider
and more mysterious to me than it's ever been. That's a strange
thing. You know, I can read a book and
get through it and forget about it. But this one right here,
I've got to where I go down and read just a few words at a time.
If I can just get some words out of it. Just get some words.
It don't make no difference to read through the Bible all year
if you don't get nothing out of it. You know, take your time. Look at it. Ask it questions. Who's he talking to? Why's he
saying that? What does that have to say to
me? And I tell you, I used to be able to quote scriptures.
I don't even care if I quote them anymore. I just want people
to understand. And now in the world, you're
going to grow in grace. And I want to grow in grace,
don't you? You know how many times I act ungracious? I act
pretty ungracious sometimes, don't I, Shirley? Be truthful
now. I act pretty ungracious sometimes. You know, if you was to follow
me around, you'd say, boy, I don't really want to hear him anymore.
But oh my, growing grace. I want to grow in the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus. And there are those who feel
that they can survive without God. I love the article that's
in the bulletin this morning, you know? Asleep. It's high time
to wake out of sleep. I love that. You know, there's
people that feel like they can survive without God. You know
what our Lord said, if you think you can get by without Me, that
means that My Word has no place in you. And those who have little
regard for Christ, and they'll give lip service to Him, and
they'll talk about Him, A little. But all but the sheep. The sheep. They say, oh, I want to know
him. We're like, Paul, I want to know Christ. I want to win
Christ. I want to be found in Christ.
He is my life. I was talking to a man the other
day, and he got talking about religion. And I told him, I said,
Talking about going to church, I said, yeah. I said, I'll tell
you something. I said, Christ is my life. We got to talk about religion,
you know. And I said, I just told, I said,
start talking about Jesus, people accepting that, and how to be.
And I said, Christ is my life. You know, he backed up and said,
he said, you're a church man, ain't you? You go to church,
don't you? And you know when I say Christ is my life, he never
will talk about religion again. He'll turn and walk away. He'll
talk about God, he'll talk about all kinds of things, but when
I say Christ is my life, that made all the difference in the
world between me and him. As long as I stood and talked
to him about religion, talked to him about tinnage, but when
I said Christ is my life, he didn't have nothing to say about
it. And there was a fellow there one time, I quit. There's a fellow one time, he's
a youth minister at the largest Southern Baptist church in our
county. The building cost millions and millions. They've got a budget,
I don't know, three or four million dollars a year. And you know,
I don't know what to do with all that money, but this is a
youth minister. He took care of the kids. And
he had on this t-shirt that says, God is. God is. Well, I walked up to him and
I said, God is, what is he? I said, God is, what is he? He
had his t-shirt, God is, who is he? What is he? Who is God
to you, I asked him. He did not have no answer whatsoever. And he's teaching. No answer. He can't grow in grace. But God
help us. Help us to grow in grace. We
want to grow in grace, don't you? Oh, God give us and enable
us to glorify him. Preach the gospel. Preach the
gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Walk in Him. Believe Him. Trust Him. Live for Him. People say, make Him foremost.
He is our life. He's our life. Take Him away
from us and what do we have? Take Him out of the Bible and
what do we have? Take Him away from our faith
and what are we left with? God is happy. Oh, our Father, our gracious,
gracious God in heaven, how blessed is your name. Holy, gloriously
holy, blessedly holy. And yet, oh Lord, you stoop to
consider us. You condescend to come into our
midst. You condescend to come and teach
us the gospel, enable us to worship you. And Lord, we want to, it's
in our heart, it's in our will, it's in our desires to glorify
You. It's in our heart, it's in our
will, it's in our desires, O God, to grow in grace and knowledge. And Lord, we don't want a righteousness
but the righteousness of Christ. We want to stand complete in
Him, accepted in Him, and only, O Lord, in His righteousness
and power. God bless these dear saints.
Bless those among them that are sick and weak and bodies are
frail and can't be with them over that. But Lord, bless those
that's here today. Keep them, preserve them, uphold
them, and provide them a preacher. Provide them somebody, Lord,
that'll love them, care for them. And watch out for them. Watch
for the souls. God bless them. Lord, keep them.
Thank you for letting me be here and preach the gospel. We bless
you in your holy name. Amen. Amen.